Brendan DeMelle's blog

With no end in sight to the GOP war on democracy, shutdown edition, all “nonessential workers” are off the job of protecting the American public. This includes ninety-four percent of the Environmental Protection Agency staff, who are on the couch watching football instead of watching the polluters who threaten public health and safety.

For the residents of Crossett, Arkansas living in daily fear of the toxic air and water pollution originating from a paper mill and chemical plant operated by Koch Industries subsidiary Georgia Pacific, the EPA staffers they’re depending on are anything but “nonessential.” The government shutdown has life or death consequences for Crossett, and communities on the fencelines of polluting industry across America.

The folks who live on Penn Road in Crossett have suffered an unimaginable loss of life that they attribute to Georgia Pacific’s air and water pollution. Out of 15 homes on the street, 11 people have died of cancer.

Georgia Pacific's facility - a plywood, paper mill and formaldehyde resin plant that produces well-known products like Brawny paper towels, Angel Soft toilet paper, Dixie cups, and Quilted Northern toilet paper - has dumped millions of gallons of wastewater into open ditches nearby, in violation of the Clean Water Act, as well as toxic vapors into the air.

After listening to powerful testimony from Crossett pastor and community leader, David Bouie, at a meeting this summer about the situation, EPA Region 6 administrator Ron Curry pledged to visit the community members in Crossett and assess the plant's impacts on their health.

Now that important visit is delayed, thanks to the government shutdown.

Crossett, an important documentary chronicling the community’s ongoing struggle, is entering the final stages of production, but the filmmakers, Natalie Kottke and Erica Sardarian, are effectively shut down, pending the EPA visit. The film will feature interviews with former White House adviser Van Jones and world-renowned chemist, Dr. Wilma Subra. Sundance Channel declared that “a film like this could literally save lives.”

The ICSC, headed by Tom Harris, a former Canadian energy company public relations consultant, is trying to grab media attention with a new report written by the who's who of the climate denier conspiracy bunch. The report, Climate Change Reconsidered II: Physical Science, is part of a series published by a Chicago-based front group for the oil and tobacco industries called the Heartland Institute.

I really hope mainstream media does not fall for their trickery again. After all, it is pretty well known by now that Fred Singer, the lead author on the International Climate Science Coalition's report, was an apologist for the tobacco industry long before he got into the business of denying the basic science of climate change. The other authors of the report, Bob CarterandCraig Idso, have equally shaky backgrounds when it comes to the science of climate change.

To give you an idea of just how shaky, look no further than Craig Idso. DeSmog discovered last year that Idso was getting paid a whopping $11,600 a month by the Heartland Institute - not exactly the most reputable source of information when it comes to a globally important issue like climate change.

Interestingly, the press release put out today by the ICSC makes no mention at all of the Heartland Institute's role in funding and publishing the report. Perhaps because of that nasty Unabomber billboard, even ICSC is afraid to be associated publicly with Heartland?

This report goes so far as to actually make the absurd claim that, “CO2 is 'the gas of life'. The more CO2, the more life.” Yes, and water is also vital to life until you find yourself drowning in it.

In an effort to dupe reporters into trusting these “climate experts,” this anti-science outfit even named itself the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), mirroring the official science body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

This is the same small group of people who claim a grand conspiracy by the United Nations to take over the world. This echo chamber of climate denial attempts to prop up non-experts in the hopes of grabbing a few headlines before journalists figure out they have been fooled by conmen.

The only story to be found in this latest salvo by the International Climate Science Coalition and the Heartland Institute is whether anyone in the press will actually fall for this nonsense again.

Originally a producer for the Rush Limbaugh Show, Morano ascended (descended?) to the position of Communications Director for Sen. James Inhofe (R-Denial), where he helped his boss to abuse the power of the Senate hearings process to attack climate science and promote conspiracy theories. Inhofe and Morano were corrected and debunked endlessly, but facts have proven no obstacle to Morano's crusade against science confirming the role of fossil fuel pollution in driving global warming.

Morano has also worked for extreme right wing operatives Howard Phillips, Paul Weyrich and Brent Bozell. Morano once quipped to a group of Agenda 21 conspiracy theorists that, “Inhofe is as far left as I'll go for an employer.”

Morano's current organization, the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), has received over $4.1 million in funds from the shadowy Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund between 2002-2011, plus an additional $582,000 from ExxonMobil between 1998-2012, according to Greenpeace's updated report, Dealing In Doubt.

In partnership with Polluterwatch, DeSmog presents the first in a series of Climate Denial Playbook entries for some of the most notorious climate deniers. Fittingly, Marc Morano kicks off the series:

See update below: Monckton responded (sort of) and Abraham has a new letter back. See below the original post.

John Abraham, a Professor of Thermal Sciences at the University of St. Thomas and a Guardian Environment blogger, has challenged the loud-mouthed potty peer, Lord Christopher Monckton, to put his money where his mouth is. Abraham offers Monckton two bets to provide proof of his outlandish and wrong claims about global warming, with all proceeds headed for a “charity that deals with climate issues.”

Read Abraham's challenge letter below:

Dear Mr. Monckton,

I understand that you’ve claimed Earth’s temperatures will likely decrease by 0.5 oC in two years, but most certainly by 2020. Specifically, you stated this on a website:

“Meanwhile, enjoy what warmth you can get. A math geek with a track-record of getting stuff right tells me we are in for 0.5 Cº of global cooling. It could happen in two years, but is very likely by 2020. His prediction is based on the behavior of the most obvious culprit in temperature change here on Earth – the Sun.”

Did the Obama administration's decision on the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline just get delayed again? Quite possibly, since the State Department Inspector General announced today that it has delayed until January the release of its review of the scandals surrounding Environmental Resources Management, Inc., the contractor chosen by TransCanada to perform State's Keystone XL environmental review.

Although the State Department was evasive about whether the IG's announcement signals a delay in the administration's decision, it would seem odd for President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry to decide on the fate of the KXL export pipeline without waiting for the results of this critical report.

Bloomberg News and The Hillbroke the news about the delay, and all signs point to the fact that State's “inquiry” has morphed into a thorough conflicts-of-interest investigation into ERM's financial ties to TransCanada and other scandals.

Greenpeace US released this powerful video today, contrasting the laudable statements that President Obama made during his climate change address in June with his administration's efforts to greatly increase the amount of public lands leased for coal mining.

Democracy is utterly dependent upon an electorate that is accurately informed. In promoting climate change denial (and often denying their responsibility for doing so) industry has done more than endanger the environment. It has undermined democracy.

There is a vast difference between putting forth a point of view, honestly held, and intentionally sowing the seeds of confusion. Free speech does not include the right to deceive. Deception is not a point of view. And the right to disagree does not include a right to intentionally subvert the public awareness.